“Cocaine?” said the District Attorney.
The boy nodded and, for an instant, the two men eyed each other, the boy smiling ruefully. The District Attorney shook his head. “My young friend,” he said, “you can never beat that game!”
Mannie stared at him, his eyes filled with surprise.
“Don’t you suppose,” he said simply, “that I know that better than you do?” With a boy’s pride in his own incorrigibility he went on boastingly: “Oh, yes,” he said, “I used to be awful bad! Cocaine and all kinds of dope, and cigarettes, and whiskey. I was nearly all in—with morphine, it was then—till she took hold of me, and stopped me.”
“She?” said Winthrop.
“Vera,” said Mannie. “She made me stop. I had to stop. She started taking it herself.”
“What!” cried Winthrop.
“Oh!” exclaimed Mannie hastily, “I don’t mean what you mean—I mean she started taking it to make me stop. She says to me, Mannie, you’re killing yourself, and you got to quit it; and if you don’t, every time you take a grain, I’ll take two. And she did! I’d come home, and she’d see what I’d been doing, and she’d up with her sleeves, and—” In horrible pantomime, the boy lifted the cuff of his shirt, and pressed his right thumb against the wrist of his other arm. At the memory of it, he gave a shiver and, with a blow, roughly struck the cuff into place. “God!” he muttered, “I couldn’t stand it. I begged, and begged her not. I cried. I used to get down, in this room, on my knees. And each time she’d get whiter, and black under the eyes. And—and I had to stop. Didn’t I?”
Winthrop moved his head.
“And now,” cried the boy with a happy laugh, “I’m all right!” He appealed to the older man eagerly, wistfully. “Don’t you think I’m looking better than I did the last time you saw me?”